Let The World Spin Madly On
by missus brokkenbroll
Summary: The story of the first time Hermione did magic, for the Headcanon Competition on the HPFC Forum. Oneshot.


Let The World Spin Madly On

She was four and pudgy. She was four, and her hair made up half her mass. She was four and she wanted to dance.

It began when, one day, her mother flipped the telly on and a tinny quartet of strings caught her attention. Playing with blocks in the corner, trying to construct a building that would withstand her puppy's well-meaning destruction, Hermione heard the music and her little ears visibly perked. Her mummy was just sitting down to watch a film, and Hermione stood and toddled over to the sofa, pulling herself up to sit beside her mother. Wordlessly, her mother enveloped Hermione in her arms and began to stroke her unmanageable hair. No matter how often they brushed it, it stood as if electrified, thankfully with none of the sting.

Then she appeared-the woman dressed all in pink, Hermione's favorite color next to purple, green, and yellow. Hermione's brown eyes, huge with wonderment, followed the woman carefully as she twirled around on the grainy screen, spotlighted and graceful.

"Mummy," Hermione said in her halted way.

"Not now, sweetie," her mummy said, stroking her hair.

"But mummy - "

"Hermione, please, Mummy's trying to watch her show."

Hermione was silent.

Then, "Mummy, one thing."

Hermione knew her mother was smiling, even though she wasn't looking at her.

"What is it, dear?"

Hermione smiled, gap-toothed and pleased. "Mummy, who is that lady?"

"She's a princess, dear, whose fiancee has been murdered viciously by the wicked Viceroy-"

At this point Hermione stopped listening. She didn't understand what her mummy was saying, but it was terribly uninteresting - not nearly as interesting as the woman on the television.

When her mother had finished explaining the story, Hermione said, "But Mummy, what is the lady doing?"

"She's dancing," her mummy said plainly after a moment.

"Dancing?" Hermione said. She danced with her mother sometimes when songs played on the radio, to every song they heard, and Hermione loved that, but she was sure it didn't look like this.

"Well, it's ballet, honey. She's doing ballet," her mummy responded absently, attention back on the television. The music had abruptly turned menacing, and an evil-looking man in a top hat had taken up the screen now. Hermione returned to her blocks.

The idea stayed in the back of her mind. Sometimes she'd prance around for whole days at a time. "Am I doing it now, Mummy?" Sometimes she'd manipulate her dolls into the necessary, impossible positions and have them perform the dance she'd seen, always frustrated when things didn't turn out as planned.

Soon her mother had no choice but to sign her up for classes. She'd already worried that Hermione would have trouble socializing in primary school, and so her enthusiasm was rather opportune.

On her first day, Hermione wore a specifically pink leotard, just as she'd seen on the film about the princess. She refused to pin back her hair or hold her mother's hand on the way into the studio. At four, she had a strong sense of pride.

There was a cluster of girls in a corner of the mirrored room, and she watched them as she stood beside her mother. Her mummy and the teacher were talking to each other, and Hermione tuned them out. She ventured a smile at the other girls, who were now turning and looking at her, one by one. They were all taller than her, and they all had their hair pinned back in tight, slick buns.

Their tittering subsided for just a moment and then it got stronger than ever. Some of the girls had mean little smirks on their faces, and some of them had their eyebrows knitted in confusion and one was just giggling.

Soon her mother left her, kissing her on the head and departing.

"Look at all her hair!" Hermione heard behind her as she watched her mother leave. Turning slowly, she smiled tentatively at the other girls again.

"What's your name?" a little girl in a black leotard said without ceremony.

"Hermione," she replied quietly.

"What sort of name is that?" another little girl asked, presumably without expecting an answer. The teacher called the class to attention, making them stand in a cluster against a wall. She began a demonstration, and Hermione was spellbound. This was exactly what she wanted to be doing.

Then she felt a poke in her stomach.

"Hey," said a little girl with her face too close to Hermione's. "Hey, Huh-Her-Herninny."

The other girls snickered a little.

"What's wrong with you? Why is your hair like that?"

Hermione looked at the teacher, who was engrossed in her dance and oblivious to the whispers. She felt pokes in her ribs and stomach, each jab more insistent than the last.

"Herninny - "

"You have an ugly name."

"Your tummy's too big to dance, Herninny."

In reality it was only about three girls that had surrounded her with such vicious intent, but to Hermione it seemed that she was under attack from all sides. Every other girl stayed silent, averting their eyes. She ducked her head under her arms, standing and trying to get away from the bullies. With her eyes closed and head down, she stumbled into the teacher, tripping her.

She even fell gracefully. Hermione looked up with tear-filled eyes and alternated between watching the teacher right herself and looking at the girls giggling at her.

"Oh, no, we made her cry."

"Babies cry."

"Babies cry and they can't dance ballet, Herninny."

The tears began to fall then swifter and in more abundance. She couldn't help openly sobbing and her face turned splotchy and red as they laughed and laughed.

The teacher had begun to shout at her about staying where she was told to stay, and a dam burst within Hermione just as her mother came running in from the waiting room. Suddenly Hermione felt an electric charge crackle in her hair and run through her body down into her toes. She closed her eyes through her tears and heard their laughter turn to screams. Blood drained from her face as she opened her eyes.

The mirrors in the room had all shattered, and everyone in the room except Hermione and her mummy had been showered in glass shards. The teacher was shouting, "Devil-child! Devil-child!" and her mummy was shouting back that Hermione hadn't, couldn't have done it.

She knew, unequivocally, that she had done it. Somehow, she was the one that had made that happen, and she felt guilty for the surge of pleasure it gave her.

They were banned from the ballet studio, without a refund for the tuition she'd spent that very day. As Hermione walked home, she held her mother's hand and let the last few tears drop.

"It wasn't your fault, Hermione," her mother said over and over again, but it didn't matter. That had been the most serious case of unknowing underage magic in a decade. So big that the Ministry sent one Arthur Weasley to clean it up - but by then Hermione and her mummy were long gone.

Hermione would forget with age and time. Years later, her mother would mention taking ballet, and Hermione actually let out a bark of laughter at the ridiculousness of the thought. The only memory she couldn't forget was the one memory that every wizard child has, some still without any sense of what it all meant - the memory of using magic for the first time. Without knowing why, for the rest of her life, when she did magic she felt as if she could dance.


End file.
